One of the most important things you can do when you’re running a business is build a reputation in the field. It helps to attract funding, build a client base, and also get you the best talent when you’re hiring. When you’re generating some buzz and excitement about your product and your working practices, talented people beat a bath to your door, so you can pick from the best rather commit to an exhausting search.

It’s difficult to bottle lightning: sometimes a reputation accumulates around you because you were in the right place, at the right time, with the right idea, and if you’re not trying to force things can damage your reputation rather than improve it.… Read the rest

The true cost of a bad hire is surprising. The US Department of Labour estimates that hiring the wrong person costs your company upwards of 30% of their first year’s salary. It also shakes the confidence of other employees in the robustness of your hiring process and the decision-making of the company in general. A really bad hire can cost you good employees, as they burn out trying to compensate for the new starter’s errors.

The higher up the chain of command you go, the more dramatic the impact of a new hire can be, for good or bad. A good executive can inspire people to go further and be more productive well outside their direct reporting chain, while a bad one can demoralise a whole company if something isn’t done.… Read the rest

Investing to improve your personal finance can be a particularly tricky situation and there are different roads to achieve this common goal. It is entirely dependent on you to decide how you want to save your money, but we will surely lead you to get the best routes!

Investment market is the best way to save some money as well as discover some returns. Many young professionals think of the present only and fritter away money in chase of happiness now. However, what they forget that the infinite future lays ahead when they would also need to meet other commitments in life.… Read the rest

Did you know it doesn’t take a million bucks to live like you have a million bucks? That’s what Sean Ogle writes over at GetRichSlowly. So why don’t more people live like millionaires?

It isn’t the money, the job, or one’s personal situation that keeps people from living a more exciting life. It’s the fear of making a change.

Ah,yes, the “C” word. More like the battle of the “C” words—we’re too comfortable to make change. To his credit, he’s not talking about living beyond your means or racking up a mass of debt. He’s referring to the one thing people who have more money typically have…time.… Read the rest

I had a whiny, way below my age breakdown yesterday. I’ve been putting in a lot of time with BudgetSnob but I haven’t seen the results I had planned by this point. So, I was a little lot down. I felt like I was staring at the Himalayas standing at the bottom of a dry lake bed in Death Valley.

Then I read something that profoundly changed my outlook. It was a newspaper article about a little (or maybe not so little) obscure blog called TheAwl. I knew the rest of the article would be good after reading this…

If you were going to assemble a business plan for a Web site, you would look closely at everything The Awl (theawl.com) did and then head in precisely the opposite direction.